The Point Live: Tomago bailout, students protest One Nation, Scientists support gas export tax.

That’s it for the Parliamentary sitting week.

We’re back on Monday. See you then.

It’s now past 7am in the United Kingdom, meaning polls have opened for the Clacton by-election, where far-right Reform party leader Nigel Farage is facing Count Binface, a space alien from the planet Sigma IX.

After unsuccessfully running for election to the UK House of Commons seven times, Brexit agitator and far-right politician Nigel Farage won the seaside county seat of Claxton in 2024 – only to quit two years later.

Farage, who is being investigated by the British Parliament for millions of pounds in undeclared payments and gifts, resigned in order to re-contest the resulting by-election, claiming that only the people of Claxton, not the House of Commons, can judge him for allegedly breaking political donation rules.

Rather than dignify the stunt, mainstream parties – Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Greens – have refused to run in the by-election.

Polls show Count Binface, whose main policies include making arcade grabber games fairer, nationalising Adele, and building at least one affordable home, may get a double-digit share of the vote.

We won’t know what the results look like until tomorrow morning, meaning Count Binface could still make history as the first alien to be elected to British Parliament.

Senate Question Time has come to an end, but Senator Peter Whish-Wilson has picked up where he left off – talking about Scott Reef and Australia’s failing Safeguard Mechanism:

The Safeguard [Mechanism], if it even works – and we’re talking about offsets here that have been proven to be completely useless in reducing emissions – even if it works, we’re talking about scope one or two emissions for one of the biggest fossil fuel projects in our nation’s history. More than 80 per cent of the emissions from this project will be burnt overseas. They’re being exported to countries that don’t have climate frameworks in place to reduce emissions. It doesn’t matter where fossil fuels are burnt; they are warming our planet and warming our oceans. The area around Scott Reef, south of Scott Reef, areas like Rowley Shoals are some of the most precious reef systems in the country that rely on tourism, and they’re very sensitive.

… We heard records of 38-degree water temperature off places like the Rowley Shoals. It’s unbelievable how warm the ocean is getting. And right now, it’s the warmest it’s ever been again. And it’s going to get warmer. And next year is going to be, unfortunately, based on the models now, the warmest year again on human history records.

So, how can we approve massive new fossil fuel projects in a time of climate breakdown? It is delusional and deranged to be promoting clean energy, which the government does – and I accept that that’s a good thing – and also be approving fossil fuel projects.

LNP Senator Susan McDonald continues her proud history of being a mouthpiece for the gas industry in Parliament:

Japanese energy companies are already signing major long-term LNG supply agreements with the United States, while Japanese industry has warned that uncertainty around Labor’s gas policies risks undermining confidence in Australia as a reliable long-term supplier.

Minister, after decades in which Japan has relied heavily on Australian LNG, why is Labor making Australia a less certain place for Japan to secure its future energy needs?

By “less certain” does she mean we might actually start taxing gas exports fairly … ie … not giving gas away?

Senator Penny Wong, representing the PM, reassures Senator McDonald that Labor recognises the importance “of Japanese investment in Australia, including, but not limited to, the Australian gas industry”.

Senator Wong goes on to say, in response to McDonald’s second supplementary question:

Of course we will remain a reliable, long-term supplier of LNG to Japan. I think we have demonstrated that as a nation across a number of decades.

We can almost hear the laughter from Tokyo from here.

In denying he’d met with gambling industry representatives since gambling reforms were introduced to Parliament, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed that he and Opposition Leader Angus Taylor have repeatedly set aside their political differences – and met in person – to force the weak reforms through:

I have had discussions with the leader of the opposition. I don’t think he minds me saying that. You know, he’s been in my office more this week than I went into the Prime Minister’s office as leader of the opposition in three years.

I’m sorry if that causes some upset to some behind the leader of the opposition, but I must say it hasn’t been his attitude, which has been constructive.

These issues are complex. There are issues of foreign engagement as well. The idea that gambling is an issue that just occurs on free-to-air TV, or just occurs in one area, is just not right. The idea that betting on sports is the major gambling addiction in Australia is absolutely false.

The idea as well that these sporting codes are somehow evil, I reject. Sporting codes do a fantastic job of engaging young people, in particular, being a binding force for people’s identity with their local communities, and are really important.

Julie Collins:

I’m pleased to update the House that the Western Australian government has today announced a vaccination trial on threatened black cockatoos at Perth Zoo … art of our national approach in terms of the rollout of vaccinations that we are working with states and territories about. It’s obviously part of our significant preparedness that we have undertaken, including years of vaccine testing undertaken by the CSIRO for specifically for Australian native birds.

I also wanted to update the House on a new development in my home state of Tasmania today. Tasmania’s state laboratory has returned its first positive result for the H5 bird flu in samples taken from a brown skua, a migratory bird. It was found at Rocky Cape in the member for Braddon’s electorate, and I did meet with her earlier today to talk about her concern about this H5 bird flu in Tasmania. We have sent samples to the CSIRO lab for confirmatory testing, and will provide an update to the public as soon as these results do become available.

I want to reiterate that there is no evidence of any detection of the H5 bird flu in our poultry or agricultural systems, and that the risk to human health remains low. I also want to thank the Australian public for reporting sick and dead birds at birdflu.gov.au.

Monique Ryan, Independent Member for Kooyong:

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, the AFL and NRL make more than 90 million dollars a year in income from gambling. They partner with gambling companies to profit from the losses of their fans. They pay zero tax on that gambling revenue. Do you think that it is appropriate that billion-dollar sporting codes receive tens of millions of dollars in tax-free income every year from a predatory industry which harms three million Australians every year?

Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister:

When it comes to the legislation that is before the Parliament at the moment, one of the things that it does, and I would hope that there would be some acknowledgement in it, is that clubs NRL in particular, which currently have sponsorship on their jumpers, such as my club, South Sydney, has Crown, Brisbane Broncos have Star Casino, Canterbury Bankstown have Laundy Hotels. Indeed, there’s something like 15 clubs are going to lose revenue as a result of the legislation that is before the Parliament if it is carried. If it is carried with amendments next week.

There’s also the case that grounds. There’s been Pointsbet Stadium, a range of grounds as well, so that on top of the issue, which I know has exercised a great deal of discussion about advertising on TV or radio. If you have a stadium that is named and sponsored, such as the one in the member for Mackellar’s electorate for quite a while, by a betting organisation, that represents 24/7 advertising, and one of the things that this legislation will do is to remove that.

We have made it clear in putting forward that the AFL, to be fair, do not have sponsorship of betting organisations on on the jumpers, they have a different internal code. But for the National Rugby League, this will have a major impact on the clubs, and we’ve made that clear. That that is something that is a really important reform.

Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister:

No wonder when they let their housing shadow minister out yesterday, he not only went on to say he was sorry that he didn’t do more to stop the madness. He described universal superannuation as one of the biggest public policy failures since federation.

When he was asked whether some low-income Australians will have to accept housing that is substandard this morning he said “yes, definitely”.

When he was asked … “if Angus Taylor can’t lift support for the party by the end of the year, will you have to change leaders again before the next election? Senator Bragg: that’s really a question for the commentators to get into. Seriously, seriously!

Then when he was asked, did he want to broaden the base and increase the rate of the GST? I wouldn’t take anything off the table.

This is a moderate!

This is a party that now not run by this bloke, but run by Tony Abbott, and he’s a moderate. Goodness knows. I mean, you know, I reckon they should broadcast one of their shadow ministry meetings. It would, it would be pretty entertaining.

Tim Wilson, who decided not to get booted before he got to ask a questions asks:

Data released today shows the average Australian worker is more than $1,200 a year poorer. Than they were a year ago. Why is the Albanese Labor government making Australians poorer?

Wilson foolishly made the question rather broad by tacking on the “making Australians poorer”.

As a result the Prime Minister can ignore it all and go on about Tomago and slap the opposition for their previous statements.

Wilson’s point goes to today’s average weekly earnings which as I noted rose by less than inflation. That means in real terms they went backwards. Wilson would be using the monthly CPI figures which in the year to May saw inflation rise by 3.9% while total average earnings rose just 2.4% that difference means the value of a real wage has fallen about $24 a week – or a touch over $1,200 a year.

I like using the quarterly CPI figures, given the monthly ones are pretty erratic

This is what the average real earnings look like for men and women:

So yes, real earnings have fallen – mostly due to male earning. Women’s total earnings have held up better.

When we look at full-time earnings, things aren’t as bad

Outgoing Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson asked the Environment Minister, Murray Watt, a question about Woodside’s Browse Project:

Woodside’s gas project around Scott Reef off the coast of West Australia is a massive carbon bomb that will release 1.6 billion tonnes of climate pollution. Scott Reef is a marine biodiversity hotspot with numerous endangered species, and the Western Australian EPA has previously recommended against this project proceeding on this basis.

In your approval decision, you are currently considering new attribution science that ties this project’s carbon emissions directly to significant coral deaths on our iconic Great Barrier Reef. Minister, can you confirm today that you received more than 70,000 submissions opposing this project in just a few weeks? And what have you got to say to these Australians who care about protecting our oceans and marine life from the greed of fossil fuel companies like Woodside?

In response to that, Minister Watt said:

I’m obviously well aware that the proposed gas development off the Western Australian coast that’s often referred to as the Browse Project, is a controversial project. There are people in Australia who support that project. There are people in Australia who oppose that project. I know very well, Senator Whish-Wilson, that you are one of the people who opposes this project.

As is always the case when applications are made for environmental assessments and decisions under the Federal EPBC Act, I will be applying the law of this country. That’s what I will be taking into account. And of course, the decision that always needs to be made is whether a particular project is likely to have a significant impact on matters of national environmental significance.

David Batt, Member for Hinkler:

The major four banks in Australia are all reporting declines in home loan applications of between 12 and 20 percent since Labor’s budget of broken promises. Will the minister finally admit Labor’s toxic taxes have tanked the housing market?

Claire O’Neil, Housing Minister:

For the first time … first home buyers are standing on a level playing field with investors.

Home ownership is the most important aspiration in the lives of most Australians, and our government is standing up and delivering that opportunity for more Australians.

These tax changes will reverse 10 years in decline of home ownership rates around our country.

I understand that those opposite are the last man standing in our country who cannot see that we have a broken housing market, and the only reason that they are in that position, Speaker, is very simple: they are not spending enough time with their constituents.

Independent Member for Curtin, Kate Chaney, asks the Minister representing the Minister for Science (Senator Tim Ayres):

Investment in science is critical to Australia’s future productivity and prosperity, but our science system is going backwards. We rank 40th out of 44th OECD nations for STEM graduates, and invest well below the average on research and development. We need bold and urgent action to reverse this decline. When will the government commit to implementing the full package of reforms recommended in the Ambitious Australia report?

Michelle Rowland:

The Ambitious Australia report was a major undertaking with hundreds of submissions and extensive recommendations touching every aspect of Australia’s research and development ecosystem. The fact is, it will take time to deliver the reform that’s required to make good on the ambition of that report. But the report presents a comprehensive set of recommendations, and this year’s budget includes the first steps of the government’s response.

A strategic, well-functioning R&D sector is central to delivering a future made in Australia, turning ideas into into industries, strengthening resilience, and supporting Australian workers and businesses.

Ambitious Australia makes clear that government funding alone cannot lift R&D performance. Industry, universities, and the private sector all have a role to play. There is $2 billion of new spending on R&D in this recent budget, bringing the government’s spend over the forwards on R&D to over 39.1 billion dollars. We’re establishing the National Resilience and Science Council to better coordinate and align public innovation investments with Australia’s economic objectives. We’re strengthening Australian science capability, critical to delivering the future made in Australia, with 1.5 billion dollars invested in science and innovation, including in the CSIRO, the National Measurement Institute, the Australian Space Agency and the Square Kilometer Array.

We’re backing Australian researchers and making Australia a destination for clinical trials, with $589 million of investment, so Australians can obtain early access to life-changing medicines and treatments. This includes increasing disbursements from the Medical Research Future Fund, growing each year from 2026-27 up to a billion dollars a year by 2030-31, the government’s focused on making sure every dollar spent on R&D has significant scale and impact. To that end, we recently concluded treaty negotiations on Horizon Europe, which will give Australian organizations access to the world’s largest pooled research fund in 2027, worth 155 billion dollars.

Mr. Speaker, we know we can always do more, but it will take a collective effort, and industry and the research sector each have a role to play. That’s why, on top of increasing public investment in science, the first stage of our response to Ambitious Australia has focused on better targeting incentives for business to invest in Australian innovation and improving coordination of our R&D efforts.

Delivering … backing … supporting … just not funding.

Independent Senator for the ACT David Pocock has called on the government to fund facial prosthetics for people who have lost parts of their face due to cancer.

What many people may not realise is that while the Commonwealth funds a prosthesis in other circumstances, such as for someone who loses a breast to cancer, there is no equivalent consistent support for someone who loses a part of their face. In fact, the only publicly funded prosthesis service in the ACT is for eyes, nothing for noses or other facial parts. And private health insurance for those who can afford it doesn’t help.

The call is simple: a nationally consistent, publicly funded pathway to external facial prosthetics. According to Head and Neck Cancer Australia, around 200 to 300 Australians need this kind of rehabilitation each year. Too many of them can’t afford to pay for the prosthetics that they need.”

In a speech immediately following that, LNP Senator Paul Scarr said: “I wasn’t aware of that situation. It is deeply troubling and I’ll certainly be raising it with the good Senator Anne Ruston, our Shadow Health Minister.”

The “alternative government” is really showing off its depth of ideas and talent today …

Angus Taylor, Opposition Leader:

Blah blah blah … grubby comment … man up … apologise .. blah blah blah

Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister:

Relaxed atmosphere … good meeting … blah blah blah

FFS, not another day of this s%#t.

The release of the May average earnings also allows us to look at the gap in pay between men and women.

The good news is that the gap is narrowing.

In May men fulltime workers took home on average $2,285.90 (for an annual rate of $118,867) while women earned 14.1% less with $1,964.50 (or $102,1564).

That gap is down from 14.3% last year and 16.6% in May 2022.

The full-time “ordinary time” (ie excluding overtime) is lower (because women are less likely to get overtime) at 11.3%. That as well is a record low and well below the 14.1% in May 2022.

The overall pay gap when including part-time is wider – because more women work part-time than do men. The total gap is 23.7% – the same as 12 months ago, but again well down on the 29.8% in May 2022:

The challenge still continue though. We know that in around 95% of all occupation, women earn less than men, but this is some good news.

Eli Lilly, the US pharmaceutical giant behind Mounjaro, says Australia does not pay enough for new medicines.

Mounjaro is a once-weekly injectable medicine used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity. Australia’s independent Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) has recommended it be subsidised for some people with inadequately controlled type 2 diabetes, but negotiations over price and financial risk have stalled.

Without PBS listing, patients can still buy it, but must pay the higher private price themselves.

In an interview with 7.30, Eli Lilly’s Chief Executive, David Ricks argued that argued that revenue from today’s medicines helps fund tomorrow’s research.

According to its annual report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, it’s true that Eli Lily spent US$13.3 billion on research in 2025. But it also spent US$11.1 billion on marketing, selling and administration, including US$2.9 billion on advertising, US$10.6 million lobbying the US federal government, and still made US$20.6 billion in net profit.

None of this makes Eli Lilly unusual. It’s a highly profitable corporation doing what corporations do – maximise returns. But governments have a different job.

Ricks also acknowledged another reason Eli Lilly will not accept Australia’s price. Australia is “not an island”, he said: a lower price here can “ripple across the world”, affecting what Lilly can charge elsewhere.

That’s quite revealing. The PBS uses the Australian government’s buying power to keep medicine prices down. Australians pay far less than Americans for many common medicines. Now US policy is explicitly trying to lower American prices partly by pressuring other wealthy countries to pay more.

But we must be clear about the trade-offs.

PBS spending is public money. If Australia pays drug companies more, the extra money must come from somewhere. That means less money for other drugs or health services – or higher taxes.

New medicines can be extraordinarily valuable. But that doesn’t mean any price is justified.

A group of welfare rights organisations say employment minister Amanda Rishworth should not be restarting parts of the penalty system applied to Centrelink recipients who have mutual obligations requirements, which has been found to operate unlawfully.

The system, known as the Targeted Compliance Framework, has been the subject of an investigation by the Commonwealth Ombudsman, and a series of penalties were progressively put on hold over the course of 2024 and 2025 as the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations identified new areas of concern about potentially unlawful cancellation of people’s Centrelink payments. Last week the department announced these penalties will begin to return in October this year, despite concerns from welfare groups who have urged the government to go further amid concerns that even more parts of the system are operating unlawfully.

Members of the DEWR’s Targeted Compliance Framework Reference Group include the Antipoverty Centre, Australian Council of Social Services, Economic Justice Australia and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services. In a joint statement, the groups have reiterated their strong opposition to compulsory activities for people on Centrelink payments, and the Government’s plans to restart some payment cancellations and suspensions under the problematic framework.

The TCF Reference Group members are calling on the government to:

• Remove the Targeted Compliance Framework immediately, including payment suspensions and financial penalties.
• Provide full back-pay and compensation to every person affected by unlawful decisions.

The groups say cutting off a person’s income for four weeks is unfair, disproportionate and serves no purpose other than punishment, especially when these decisions are being made as part of a system that has such a troubling history of unlawfulness.

Independent analysis by Economic Justice Australia found more than 300,000 people were potentially affected by unlawful payment cancellations, with DEWR recently admitting “It’s in the vicinity of that” during a Senate Estimates hearing. Throughout the period since unlawful cancellations were identified, most payment suspension penalties have remained in place and have been used millions of times to punish people.

Antipoverty Centre co-coordinator Kristin O’Connell said:

“The decision to prioritise turning cancellations back on is extraordinary negligence on behalf of Amanda Rishworth, who is responsible for both the wellbeing of welfare recipients and the lawful administration of welfare compliance rules. She is ignoring every alarm bell that is ringing about the widespread misuse of payment suspension penalties by privatised employment services, which are inflicted millions of times a year.”

ACOSS CEO Dr Cassandra Goldie AO said:

“Removing income support payments for four weeks pushes people to the brink and does absolutely nothing to help them find paid work. People who are already in severe financial distress struggling on poverty-level Jobseeker at $400 per week will again face an oppressive and punitive system of sanctions and penalties.

“The Government has said it wants to reform employment services so people are genuinely helped into paid work. Restarting harsh, unreasonable penalties sends the opposite message to the people whom these services are meant to support.”

Economic Justice Australia CEO Kate Allingham said:

“Last year, our own analysis revealed that roughly 310,000 people had had their payments cancelled illegally. Time and time again, our Member Centres hear from people who are not able to pay rent, or who cannot afford to eat, when their payments are suspended without notice. The fact that people’s lives are being put at risk because of catastrophic flaws within a Government system should trigger a crisis response, but that is not what we have seen happen.”

NATSILS General Manager Nick Espie said:

“Of all people who had their welfare payments unlawfully cancelled between April 2022 and July 2024, 46% were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

“This is another example of systemic and structural racism at play, and demonstrates a significant failure of the Government to take measures to improve the economic prosperity and social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.”

I wrote earlier today about how the integrity agencies that oversee Australia’s freedom of information systems play an integral role in the system.  

Keeping on with that theme, let’s have a look at a few more FOI stories from Australian states and what they tell us about the policies and operations of different governments.

1. Tasmanian greyhound racing – TasRacing withheld videos of forty races from the public because they contained images of dogs being injured or dying, according to documents obtained by the ABC. Greens MLC Cassy O’Connor has accused the government of attempting to “airbrush the cruel reality and the risks of this industry”.
2. Exorbitant gifts – the Brisbane Olympics Committee has been offered gifts in the lead-up to the 2032 games, according to documents released under Queensland’s right to information laws, including a $82,000 bottle of cognac, two bottles of wine worth $20,000, Champagne Cognac worth $2,000 and tickets to Australian Open events, Australian Grand Prix events and AFL games. Some gifts, including the more lavish ones, were refused or relinquished.
3. Pokie machines – According to documents obtained by the ABC, the Tasmanian Liquor and Gaming Commission wasn’t consulted by Treasurer Eric Abetz on new state gambling machine policies. The Commission, which will be responsible for enforcing the laws, warns that the new laws will “potentially create[e] greater harm”.
4. Child Protection employees stood down – Following release of documents under South Australian FOI laws, the ABC reported that 27 staff from SA’s Department of Child Protection had been stood down over eight months, and that there were 12 ongoing investigations into staff over care concerns. 
5. Sovereign Citizens – Tasmanian police had asked suspected sovereign citizens to confirm whether they aligned with the ideology, and to prove that they were “fit and proper” gun owners, according to documents obtained by the ABC. The Australian Lawyers’ Alliance has warned that this targeting of people risks “authoritarian” overreach, and by the time the documents were public Tasmanian police had reviewed and changed their process.
6. Hobart City Council – The controversy over refreshments being taken from the Hobart Town Hall elected members’ lounge was revived when CCTV video showed the deputy lord mayor leaving the building with a companion holding a shopping bag. Also among the documents released under Tasmania’s right to information laws was email correspondence listing refreshments removed or consumed within 48 hours of restocking.

That’s just six examples of things we’ve learned thanks to FOI since our last live blog.

But stay tuned – I have another seven coming from the federal level. 

In January, the Albanese Government announced a new funding agreement with the states and territories, which included increased federal funding for public hospitals. Eight months later, however, hospitals do not appear to be faring well, particularly in regional Australia.

In Victoria, the ABC has reports cases of patients in regional hospitals waiting more than 40 hours for a hospital bed, and doctors treating some stroke patients in corridors. Across the state, 70% of people who spent more than 24 hours in emergency departments between January and March 2026 were treated in regional and rural hospitals.

Public hospitals in small rural towns receive 70% less funding per person than hospitals in major cities.

Research from the Australian Institute shows that people in major cities receive more than $24 billion in Medicare benefits each year, while regional, rural and remote Australians receive a combined $2 billion.

The consequence of this gap is that people in these communities are hospitalised for preventable conditions at higher rates than those in the cities. They’re also more likely to die from preventable conditions and tend to have longer hospital stays. In Far West NSW, residents have a life expectancy nearly six years shorter than those in Sydney.

Adding to the problem, these regions face ongoing shortages of GPs, specialists, and other healthcare professionals, making it difficult for people to get timely care.

Tomorrow, the Senate Standing Committee on Rural, Regional Affairs and Transport will hold another round of public hearings on improving Medicare access and funding for these communities.

Universal care should mean that all Australians are properly cared for, not just those who live in cities.

Today the Bureau of Statistics released the latest average earnings figures for May.

The average weekly ordinary times (ie excluding overtime) earnings for all adults working full-time earnings increased by 3.7% annually to $2,083.70 in May 2026. That is the slowest since May 2022.

Total earnings for all people (ie including part-time) rose just 2.4% – the slowest since the pandemic period of May 2021:

This is not the type of thing you see in a labour market that is :tight” (to use the RBA’s words). And it certainly is not a sign of wages powering inflation.

The 2.4% growth in total average earnings is well below the 3.8% rise in the inflation.

It would be nice if the RBA acknowledged that wages are not a problem and not in anyway a cause of rising inflation, and to stop saying that unemployment needs to rise.

Proposed gambling reforms is being debated in the parliament this week. We reported on the blog today about Dan Tehan’s contribution.

One thing that struck me was the constant talk about how we need to get the balance right, by reducing harm, without restricting people who want to have a bet.

The Prime Minister loves to use this “getting the balance right” line. He used it at his opening address to caucus at the beginning of the week.

He said:

And making sure that those issues are dealt with in a constructive way, making sure that we get the balance right between people who want to go along and have a punt on a Saturday at the races. But also, that problem gambling is actually dealt with.

But this confuses restrictions on advertising with peoples access to gambling. This debate has nothing to do with access to gambling.

Let’s assume those advocating for stronger reform got everything they’re asking for, including a total ban on gambling advertising, a ban on gambling inducements, and a national regulator. None of this stops anyone who wants to bet from being able to bet.

People will still be able to go to the races. They will still be able to open an app on their phone and gamble whenever they want. Nobodies access to gambling is being threatened by any of these reforms.

All this talk of getting the balance right is a smokescreen to try and make the government’s position seem reasonable.

The Senate is still debating the Greens’ Extended Producer Responsibility Scheme for Packaging (No Time to Waste) Bill 2026.

Labor Senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah rose to explain that “the government will not be supporting this bill.”

However, we recognise the problems that we have with plastic. We are drowning in plastic. And I’m going to wear my environmental hat and I’m going to wear my medical hat.

I was recently on the Community Affairs Microplastics Inquiry, and I heard some truly sobering and alarming testimony, and I did my own personal research.

With respect to plastics, we are in the midst of a pandemic of plastic. And with regards to microplastics and nanoplastics they are ubiquitous. 

They are all over the environment. When you go looking for them you will find them. They’re in the soil. They’re in the air that we breath. They’re in the clothes that we wear: polyester, it’s plastics, derived from plastics. Our foods are wrapped in plastic.

And when you go looking in the human body, you actually find plastic microplastics in every single organ of the body and in our fluids. It’s in the brain, it’s in the placenta, it’s in the lungs, the heart, the musculature, it’s in semen.

So why isn’t the government supporting the Bill? 

Senator Ananda-Rajah went on:

We get the problems here. But we want to work in a collaborative way in order to land a solution that will actually have teeth and be effective and will not just deal with plastic recycling.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge makes a fair point about the Tomago bailout:

If the public’s dropping $2.5 billion into a corporation that’s owned by Rio Tinto that made $10 billion profit last year, the public should be getting some equity in this.

We should be getting some ownership of this. No one else would put $2.5 billion of money in and not get equity.

There absolutely should be equity, and it goes to prove just how bloody expensive fossil fuels are at the moment, and why we need to roll out large scale renewables.

Independent MP for Kooyong Monique Ryan has compared Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to former PM Tony Abbott, after 70 scientists joined a push for a tax on gas exports to make up for the extraordinary cuts to science funding in Australia.

Tony Abbott doesn’t believe in net zero. But Tony Abbott’s government spent more on climate science than Anthony Albanese’s is doing.

The fact is that we can’t measure risk, and we can’t mitigate it if we don’t have scientists who are able to do the maths, do the calculations. And the scientists who I’m going to be able to tell us how to deal with the impending and ongoing impact of climate change every day in this country.

If you can’t measure something that matters to you, then you can’t act on it, and we will not be able to measure the impact of climate change in this country going forward if we don’t spend more money on science, it’s that simple.

So the government needs to act, it needs to fund science better. It will help our economy. It will help our productivity, it will help our climate and will help our health.

She’s stuck in the Canberra classroom sitting next to the class clown.

To be fair, she hardly ever shows up, so no sympathy here.

Great pic by Mike Bowers.

Right now the House is debating the University Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026.

This Bill does A LOT; the Bill itself is 72 pages, and the Explanatory Memorandum (an associated document that’s meant to explain its effects) is 182 pages.

The main thing it does is introduce a new ‘Managed Growth Funding System ’, which is a whole new system of allocating students to different universities. It also introduces new ‘Needs-based Funding’ to try to support students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, First Nations students and students at regional campuses.

A lot of people have a lot of concerns about the Bill, here are a couple of them:

• The Bill gives the Minister a lot of power with minimal accountability, review and transparency mechanisms.
• The new funding system seems very complex and has features such as non-discretionary penalties for over-enrolling students that could punish universities when circumstances were out of their control.

Potentially more importantly, though, is what the Bill doesn’t include. It is allegedly focused on equity and access but does nothing to reverse the Job-ready Graduate package that created $50,000 arts degrees. It does nothing to help improve access or adequacy of student income support payments such as Youth Allowance or Austudy. It also does not address the ongoing governance crisis in the sector.

There is a bit of murmuring around the Liberal Party today about Andrew Bragg’s speech yesterday at the National Press Club. Yes it was unhinged and very student politics framed, but it also saw him freelancing on Liberal Party policy on migration.

Angus Taylor has explained to journalists that the policy of linking migration to housing supply (a pretty dopey policy anyway).

But what is also simmering is how Bragg absolutely avoided giving Taylor any support.

This was not really reported yesterday by the media but we reported it (perhaps because I was listening for every mention of “communism”

To recap here is what happened

He was asked if Angus Taylor would still be leader at the end of the year, or did his poll numbers need to improve.

He replied:

That’s really a question for commentators to get into. I’m obviously working very hard on the policy stuff. With Angus, with our team. We think that putting out more policy is the way to go and everything else is basically commentary.

That was a decidedly “not supporting the leader” answer

He was told that actually it is actually up to him and the party room.

He replies:

We’re all working together. We… Our priority is to beat the Communists, OK? That’s our priority.

We’re all working together to outline a very clear policy suite that can be supported. We have other parties which I’ve referred to as, you know, fragmented elements of our political system that we need to beat and the only way to do that is by developing a very ambitious policy suite. We’re not going to achieve that if we end up talking about ourselves all the time.

Not one mention of Angus Taylor. Not one mention that he is doing a great job. Not one mention of support.

That will not have gone unnoticed.

Earlier this week NASA released the July global land-sea surface temperatures.

My summary? Not good.

July set a new record for temperature – its was 1.45C above the 1880-1905 average

And it was not a one off. April, May, June and July this year all had temperatures that were above the level ever seen before 2024.

It’s worth noting that this is happening before we get the full impact of the “supercharged” El Niño that is about to hit us.

In the first part of 2026 the annual average of global temperatures was falling from the record peak reached in August 2024. But the trough appears to have been reached and temperatures are going back up

The big problem to this is if that is the “low temperature” then we really need to reconsider what is normal.

From 1965 to 2010 global temperature mostly rose in a linear fashion (yes ups and down, but the trend was pretty straight). But now temperature have absolutely busted out of the 45 years channel of peaks and troughs.

Going from what we observed from 1965-2010 you would have expected a temperature that is 1.28C above the 1880-1909 average would be a “peak year”. Instead what we have seen is that the 1.41C in April this year is now a low point.

Temperatures are not just rising, they are rising faster.

Today’s Financial Review quotes from a grim warning from technology entrepreneur, John Grant:

In an Armageddon-type situation, Grant’s worst fear is that mass unemployment will lead to a shredding of the income tax base, a collapse in the property market that slashes capital gains tax revenue, a plunge in asset prices that smashes superannuation tax takings, and a decline in consumer spending that causes GST revenue to fall.

Now if mass unemployment were to eventuate, things like tax collections and balancing budgets become very much secondary issues.

But the point is that there is a creditable scenario with a disastrous outcome for the Australian economy. In this scenario productivity from AI is linked to mass unemployment. By contrast Danielle Wood said AI could add 4% to labour productivity over the decade. Now 4% a decade is worth just 0.4% per annum suggesting AI would be pretty harmless.

No doubt one of the reasons for such a small estimate is the fact that AI does not appear to have influenced productivity in the statistics to date.

The problem is that productivity in the service economy is notoriously difficult to measure. It would not matter much if services were a small part of the Australian economy, but in fact, services account for a whopping 82%. Service industries do not produce outputs that you can drop on the floor, they do not weigh anything.

With productivity, if we cannot measure it, has it happened? We just do not know. Measures of output in the service sector are dramatically inadequate. One recent study reported in the Australia Institute submission to a Senate inquiry into productivity showed that while nursing productivity is generally estimated at around zero, if you adjust for quality of outcomes it can be very high at around 3% per annum. If we cannot measure it properly we just cannot know if AI is boosting productivity and/or threatening unemployment.

Hopefully we get some answers from the South Australian royal commission into AI. The SA Premier, Peter Malinauskas, said AI is “an exciting opportunity to advance the cause of humanity”, but it also represents a “material risk to the way our society operates and a risk to the future of work if not thought through carefully”. We look forward to whatever that royal commission comes up with.

Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize has released the following statement on the Opposition housing spokesperson Andrew Bragg’s proposal to strip back the National Construction Code

“Everyone deserves a safe, decent and affordable home. It’s where people sleep, study, raise
their families and build their lives.

“Let’s call this what it is. Stripping back the National Construction Code is about helping
developers make even more money from the housing crisis by making it easier to build
unliveable homes.

“Accessibility, energy efficiency and basic liveability are not luxuries. They are the minimum
standards people should be able to expect from their homes.

“Renters already make up around a third of Australians, and too many are being asked to pay
enormous rents for poor-quality homes. The answer is to lift standards, not tear them down so
developers and landlords can cut more corners.

“Too many renters are already living in homes that are freezing in winter, stifling in summer,
riddled with mould and damp, and expensive to heat and cool. Older people and people with
disability already struggle to find homes they can safely and comfortably live in.

“We have a housing crisis because people cannot afford a home. Building more poor-quality
homes does nothing to fix that crisis. It simply gives developers another way to profit from it.

“Governments should be focused on what Australia actually needs: building social housing
that people can afford, and making sure every new home is decent, accessible and built to
last.”

Andrew Bragg is the opposition spokesperson for housing. Unfortunately, he should probably spend more time looking at the stats on housing and less time branding everything communist.

He claimed in his Press Club speech that not enough houses are being built for the growth in the population. But if you take a reasonable period of time (rather than cherry picking) you can see that over the last 10 years the population has increased by 16% but the number of homes has increased by 19%. Homes are increasing faster than the population.

He also pushed for wholesale cuts to housing regulations. This includes basic things like good insulation. All this would achieve is homes that are a tiny bit cheaper to build but cost a fortune to heat and cool.

At the same time, he came back to the Coalition’s obsession with making income tax less progressive. Or as they call it, flattening out the income tax brackets. Flatter tax brackets mean big tax cuts for high income earners and either higher taxes for those on middle and low incomes or big cuts to services.

We got a look at what the Coalition mean by flatter taxes when they were last in government. The grossly unfair stage 3 tax cuts were designed to do exactly that. Fortunately, they were changed in 2024 to make them much fairer.

Finally, Bragg called for the top rate of tax to be lowered from 45% to something with a 3 in front of it. That’s a tax cut that would only go to those earning more than $190,000.

So, its big tax cuts for the rich and more expensive homes to live in for those on lower incomes.

e61 Institute released some interesting research yesterday. In the context of the constant calls to ‘means-test’ the NDIS, e61 had a look at the data and checked what would happen if you applied a pension-style means test to the NDIS.

They found:

• NDIS spending already predominantly goes to adults in low-income families.
• 87 per cent of adult NDIS spending goes to participants who receive the Disability Support Pension, a payment that is itself income- and asset-tested.
• An income-based means test would mean 40% of participants would lose government subsidies entirely but would only reduce NDIS spending by 12%, mostly by impacting children.

This is their most striking graph. In total, participants with an adjusted income (taxable income plus things like Rent Assistance and fringe benefits) below $40,000 account for 73% of spending and 41% of participants. Remember that the full-time minimum wage at this time was about $48,000, so these families are earning less than a single full-time worker on minimum wage; many of them are likely in poverty even after receiving the Disability Support Pension.

Impacts on work

Another important point they make is about the ‘behavioural responses to means testing the NDIS’. Essentially, if you introduce means testing to the NDIS, it’s likely to impact how much people work, as working more could cause them or a family member to stop receiving NDIS support. For instance, a couple with a school-aged child on the NDIS may face a situation where both parents working full-time actually leaves the family worse off.

Means testing and social insurance

Means testing also fundamentally undermines social insurance. I’ve written about this at more length before, but the central idea is that social insurance is meant to insure or protect everyone against certain risks to their livelihoods, such as sickness and disability. Introducing means testing to the NDIS does not mean “those who can pay more” do so; it means people with disabilities or illnesses pay more. Meanwhile, the healthy, able-bodied rich are let off the hook. If Australia is concerned that “those who can pay more should”, then we have a well-known solution: higher taxes on the rich.

Liberal MP Tony Pasin (mostly known for how often he gets kicked out of Question Time) has drawn the speakers attention “to the state of the house”. This is about pointing out that fewer than the 30 people present in order for the house to have a quorum.

The bells are rung and more than 30 MPs rock up and we carry on.

And immediately the MPs leave.

What a dopey waste of time.

In the United Kingdom today, a much-watched by-election as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage contests a by-election against an intergalactic warrior named Count Binface.

Farage is the incumbent MP in the seat of Clacton, but he called the election in an attempt to distract from parliamentary scrutiny of donations he received and did not declare.

The major parties wisely stayed out of the by-election to avoid giving Farage’s stunt any credibility, but that left the way clear for joke candidate Count Binface – who has attracted endorsements and support across the political spectrum.

Count Binface is very unlikely to win, but he has already had a victory of sorts with his presence in the race ensuring if Farage wins it will be a hollow victory. “More popular than a space alien with a bin on his head” is not a high bar to have set for yourself.

Australian elections are much better than UK ones in many ways, including that we vote on a Saturday when it’s convenient for most people instead of a work day (Thursday in this case). We have preferential voting, which means two like-minded candidates can run without eating each other’s lunch.

But the UK puts us to shame in at least one way. In Australia we think of ourselves as larrikins, but as I wrote in The Point, we’ve made it almost impossible to run as a joke candidate. That’s our loss, as Count Binface shows.

Communications Minister Anika Wells draws the debate to an end.

The government will not support the amendments thus far, but things will continue next week Wells ends “See you next week for amendments”

We have now had a further 9 speakers on the Online Gambling bill today. No one particularly likes the bill. Pretty much each speaker gets up and talks about the experiences they have had with people who have suffered harm from gambling, and how the bill needs to do more to actually reduce the ability of gambling companies to offer inducements.

But Dan Tehan has taken a different tack.

Tehan has decided to start his speech by talking about how much he loves to have a punt and how much he loves horse racing and greyhound racing (he noted he has a stake in a couple of horses) and he spent a while talking up for some reason the glories of the Grand Annual Steeplechase in Warrnabool which he talks about everyone having fun. (The horses not so much)

Tehan is all about geting the balance right — not wanting to affect people who want to have a bet or those who get an income from gambling.

He then pivots to also talking about how he had an uncle who needed help from the harm caused by gambling. But then pivots straight back to not wanting to prevent people being able to have a bet – and that they should be able to be offered money back if the horse they back runs second or third: “that’s a good offer”.

And then he says “sometimes you win sometimes you lose.” Cripes.

He suggests they the bookies set the odds and of course they want to make a profit, and what’s wrong with them offering an inducement like getting money back if your horse comes second?

Wow.

The gambling industry would be very happy with Tehan’s speech, especially as he ends it with another advert for the Grand Annual Steeplechase

Attorney-General Michelle Rowland has granted parole to jailed whistleblower David McBride.

McBride was jailed for nearly 6 years in May 2024 for sharing classified information with journalists.

The information was used in the ABC’s “The Afghan Files” in 2017 that detailed alleged war crimes committed by SAS solider in Afghanistan.

He will serve a further three years of his sentence under supervision.

The Senate has moved on to consideration of the Government’s Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Omnibus No. 1) Bill 2026.

Michaelia Cash, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, is questioning the Government on the appointment of Raelene Sharp KC as Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP), and the conflicts of interest that she might have. That’s relevant because the Bill, if passed, would “provide a mechanism for the Attorney-General to authorise a person to perform a function or exercise a power of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (the Director) where the Director considers they have an actual, potential, or perceived conflict of interest”.

Senator Cash said:

“Your Attorney-General has now formally put on the record, via you, that she does not believe that there is any actual or perceived conflict in the fact that the current CDPP, Raelene Sharp, was counsel assisting the Office of the Special Investigator in relation to war crimes that had allegedly been committed.”

The war crimes she’s referring to here are those allegedly committed by Ben Roberts-Smith.

It’s been a bit of a convoluted discussion, but Labor Senator Nita Green, Assistant Minister for Pacific Island Affairs, has told Senator Cash that “the Government does not accept that there is any actual perceived conflict of interest that relates to the current Director of Public Prosecutions.”

Video by Mike Bowers

Yesterday in Question Time, National Party MP, Anne Webster accused the government of imposing an “$11 billion tax” on older Australians, claiming their private health insurance costs will surge by 21%, or more than $800 a year for singles and $1,600 for couples.

Let’s unpack that.

The government is not introducing a new tax. It is removing the additional private health insurance rebate given to people aged 65 and over, so that people on the same income receive the same taxpayer subsidy regardless of their age.

The Budget estimates this will save $3 billion over four years, and about $1 billion a year thereafter. The often-quoted $11 billion figure is the projected saving over roughly a decade.

Nor will older Australians generally face a 21% increase. The government estimates around 3.2 million people will be affected, with premiums increasing by an average of roughly $226 to $255 a year.

The $800 figure, or $1,600 for a couple, comes from modelling of people with relatively expensive policies, such as gold cover. It is an upper-end example, not the typical impact.

There is a legitimate argument about whether removing the age-based rebate is good policy. But it is worth remembering what is being removed: a larger taxpayer subsidy for private health insurance based solely on being older.

As I’ve argued before, claims that this will cause a mass exodus from private insurance and overwhelm public hospitals are also greatly exaggerated. The government expects fewer than 1.5% of affected policyholders to drop their cover, a figure supported by Melbourne University research.

Calling the change a “toxic tax” and quoting the largest possible premium increase makes for a good Question Time grab. It’s less useful as description of what the policy actually does.

In a speech today Christopher Kent Assistant Governor (Financial Markets) of the Reserve Bank is talking about “The Restrictive Stance of Monetary Policy”.

What he means is that the RBA now thinks the cash rate of 4.35% is actually slowing the economy.

Slowing the economy is a really nice polite way of saying “making unemployment go up”.

The RBA wants this to happen because it believes too few people are unemployed, which means that too many people are spending money and also that workers might be too confident to bargain for higher wages.

The RBA hate me writing things like this – my Guardian columns have attracted a fair bit of ire and complaint from them.

Well on Tuesday the Governor of the RBA, Michele Bullock made it absolutely clear that higher unemployment is the aim.

I wouldn’t like people to think that because we’re seeing a slowing and a rise in the unemployment rate, that means that we have to reverse course. Actually, we need that. We need growth to slow because potential growth in the economy is not very – it’s not growing strongly. We need to slow. We need a little bit less tightness in the labour market in order to bring inflation down.

A rise in the unemployment rate? “Actually, we need that”.

Bullock is always at great pains to say that doesn’t mean she wants people to lose their job, just that she wants it to be harder for people who currently don’t have a job to get one.

So that’s nice.

This is the problem with the RBA’s neoliberal view of the world and society – it believes people need to live in poverty on Jobkeeper for the good of those with a job.

Yes the RBA has a mandate for “full employment” but it has turned that into just another version of inflation. The RBA has decided that full employment cannot occur unless inflation is below 3%, and if more people need to be unemployed in order to achieve that, then that means that to achieve full employment more people need to be unemployed.

So no, the RBA doesn’t try to achieve full employment (despite that being its legally mandated role). No it tries to get inflation between 2% and 3% and then essentially announces Huzzah! Full employment achieved.

I would have a tiny bit more sympathy for this approach if the RBA showed any courage and voice in calling for an increase in Jobkeeper so these people it is purposefully keeping in poverty are actually able to survive with some dignity.

But the RBA leaves such things to the government and just carries on suggesting “we need” more people unemployed and that somehow because they don’t think it will mean people losing their jobs that it is all fine.

The new revelations published by AFR that KPMG reached a settlement with another whistleblower who alleged systemic misconduct in its tax division and who is now subject to a non-disclosure agreement are a salutary reminder that the misconduct within the big four that comes to light represents only a fraction of the problem. 

Conflicts of interest are baked into their business model, meaning that a structural problem requires a structural solution. They must be broken up and regulated like corporations.

In my Guardian column today I look at the supposedly scary forecasts for house price fall that ANZ put out this week.

For example it projects over the next 18 months Sydney median house prices to fall 14.5%.

That sounds a lot, but all it would do is take prices back to 2023 levels and to still be around 40% higher than in 2020.

All up across all capital cities ANZ projects a 10.6% fall through 2026 and 2027, but then a 4.3% increase in 2028.

That will leave prices where they were in September last year.

This might have some thinking that the policy has been a complete fail – after all wasn’t this meant to improve affordability?

Well the good news it has, the bad news is we have 25 years of damage to undo.

Over the next 2-3 years as house prices fall and then recover a bit, household incomes will keep rising, which means the cost of housing in terms of income improves quite a lot – but cripes the journey back to even where we were in say 2015 is so very far:

I have more of the details and figures in the article, so go have a read!

Andrew Bragg was at the press club yesterday and it was an extraordinary speech. He had a big spray at his own side, saying the Liberal Party had contributed to its own malaise.

But what was also interesting was just how many times he branded things he didn’t like as communism. Here are just some of the things that are communist according to Andrew Bragg:

• Labor’s tax changes designed to advantage owner occupiers over investors – that’s communist
• Setting a migration target for tech workers – sounds like communism
• The slowdown in the housing market – that’s made it feel like we’re living in a communist State
• South Australia having a Royal Commission on AI – sounds like communism (but he quite likes Peter Malinauskas)
• And what the Coalition’s priority should be – beat the communists

The Liberal Party has talked about getting back to its roots. Who knew that meant going back to a Menzies 1950s reds under the bed scare campaign?

The Senate has started for the day, and they’re currently debating the Extended Producer Responsibility Scheme for Packaging (No Time to Waste) Bill 2026. This Private Senators’ Bill would establish “an extended producer responsibility scheme requiring producers, importers and distributors to manage packaging across its full lifecycle.”

It was introduced by Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson in May, who gave his valedictory speech last night.

On the Bill, Senator Whish-Wilson said today:

It’s a real honour to stand up here today and open debate on this, what I believe to be very popular private members’ bill across this nation, to have an extended producer responsibility scheme, which in simple terms just means that producers of plastic packaging are responsible for the end of life of their product.

Deputy President, this is not really necessarily an environmental or green issue. It’s actually very much an economic issue. This is about whether we want to waste resources and ask ourselves the fundamental question, why are we making things that just end up going to landfill and aren’t kept within a circular economy?

It’s a very simple concept. Every bit of packaging in this country should be made for its end of life. The corporations that produce this packaging, like plastic packaging, need to design their products for end of life so that they stay within the system, so that they can be reused or recycled or composted.

It’s actually not that hard. And I want to keep it really simple today because around 80 countries around the world have gone down this road of putting in place some form of extended producer responsibility, making producers of plastic responsible for the waste and the pollution that they create, and the end of the life of their product.

Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister:

In December last year I stood in the rain at Tomago and told the workers ‘we have your back’. Today, alongside the NSW government, we deliver on that promise. This site isn’t just important for Newcastle and the Hunter, it’s a critical asset for the country and our manufacturing future. I’m proud of the work we’ve done with the company, with the Minns Labor Government, with local members and with the workers here on site to secure Tomago’s future beyond 2028.

Chris Minns, NSW Premier:

This is a good day for the Hunter. This agreement secures more than 1,000 jobs at Tomago and thousands more that rely on the smelter, and gives the region certainty about its future. I want to thank the Prime Minister and the Commonwealth government. We’ve worked closely together to get to this point and deliver an agreement that to find a way through and secure the future of Tomago. The Hunter has powered NSW and helped build this country for generations. This agreement is about making sure it remains an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse for generations to come. This is part of our bigger plan for the Hunter, securing the good jobs and industries that are here today, while investing $12 billion to bring train manufacturing back to the Hunter and create good, secure jobs for decades to come.

Anthony Albanese has appeared down at the Tomago aluminum smelter to sprik the government’s bailout.

At the end of last year I came here and said “We have got your back” to the workers at this facility. We have worked with the Minns Labor Government here in New South Wales to make sure that this facility has a future that is not only it being able to survive but it thriving into the future.

This is an arrangement that will deliver additional clean energy for New South Wales and for Australia. It will deliver on manufacturing jobs. It will deliver on keeping not just the thousand jobs which are here direct and 5,000 indirect in this region but the many tens of thousands of jobs that come from us being a country that makes things, and aluminium is an essential product. The idea that we sit and allow this facility to just disappear will have – would have had consequences.

We cannot afford to be at the end of supply chains. We need to be a country that makes things and there is nowhere better in Australia that has a history of making things than the Newcastle and Hunter regions. That is why this is so important right here today. I want to thank Tomago aluminium as well for investing in this region. This commitment, $2.5 billion, shared fifty-fifty between our Federal Labor Government and the New South Wales Labor Government, led by Chris Minns, is being backed by additional investment from Tomago in their future. This is a great example of governments at different levels working together to secure jobs and secure the future but also working with the private sector to secure outcomes in the national interest.

There is no question that aluminium is an essential product to be produced because it goes into everything is manufactured in this country just about. That is why we weren’t prepared to sit back and say “It is all too hard”. We have worked constructively to make sure we have a plan. I want to pay tribute to Chris Bowen and Tim Ayres, industry minister and energy minister, who have worked with their New South Wales counterparts to make sure it is delivered.

I want to pay tribute to the local members here, Meryl Swanson and my team and the New South Wales Labor team who have worked so hard to represent the workers and families here. I just met a husband and wife who have just bought a home in Raymond Terrace here. They said to me just before – I had never met them before – that this secures their future going ahead for the period ahead.

I told them we are about to open the M1 in a few weeks, I will be back in the Hunter. Further investment in Raymond Terrace and in this region, backing up the investment we have had in the Hunter Expressway. The investment in the port, the investment we have had in this region. Labor governments will back Newcastle and the Hunter.

Thousands of students are expected to protest Pauline Hanson and One Nation across the country today as part of a National Day of Action called and organised by the National Union of Students (NUS).

The NUS is the peak representative body for tertiary education students in Australia and is mobilising students nationwide against One Nation and its politics of racism, division and attacks on students and working people.

Pauline Hanson and One Nation represent the far right in Australian politics. For decades, Hanson has attacked migrants and minorities while opposing measures that would improve the lives of students, young people and workers.

One Nation has opposed making tertiary education more affordable, attacked efforts to reduce student debt and repeatedly attacked universities.

It has opposed stronger rights and conditions for workers, while attempting to blame migrants for the housing and cost-of-living crises hurting young people.

International students have increasingly become a target of One Nation’s politics. The NUS rejects attempts to turn students against their classmates and scapegoat migrants for problems they did not create.

Over the past year, sections of the media have increasingly treated Pauline Hanson and One Nation’s far-right politics as a normal part of mainstream political debate. Today’s protests reject that normalisation and demand that racism and the far right are confronted, not legitimised.

Students have a proud history of organising against racism and the far right. Today, students across the country are taking that fight to One Nation and rejecting a politics that pits students and working people against each other.

One of the things that came through from yesterday’s manifesto on unhingedness from Andrew Bragg at the National Press Club is that the opposition is rather concerned that the government is doing things.

This isn’t just about it wanting to criticise the Albanese government but that doing things like cutting the Capital Gains Tax 50% discount, limiting negative gearing, reducing the tax minimisation of discretionary trusts and now today bailing out the Tomago aluminum smelter and introducing the media bargaining code shows that a big government is something that works.

Bragg went insanely hard shouting out about “communism” because the neoliberal belief of small government, low low taxes (especially for the rich and companies) has come a gutser (as my Dad would say).

After 40+ years of pushing the lie of trickle down the voters are revolting and Bragg and his co are not coping. And thus they fall back on what worked back in the day: “communism!!”

It borrows heavily from the Republican Party in the USA where they list off all the Communism and mostly it becomes “stop threatening me with a good time” such as this warning on Fox News

What is Bragg saying is communism? Not giving self-managed super funds a 50% tax break on profits of housing investments, a building code that ensures good, safe housing for all, an investigation into AI.

I mean come on.

It truly is time to absolutely destroy the old line of Milton Friedman that “The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem” or of Ronald Reagan that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem”.

Pithy lines were used to justify dismantling the post WWII social contract and led to an absolute surge of inequality. And that was always the aim.

The rising tide might lift all boats, but the neoliberals made damn sure only a few owned a boat.

Governments have the power to do good, for the past 40 years we have had far too many excuses or why they shouldn’t.

And people wonder why the major party votes are falling.

70 leading Australian scientists have signed an open letter calling for increased science funding and a 25% tax on gas exports. 

Australian science is in crisis: 

• According to the Australian Academy of Science, Australia’s science system is going backwards, risking national capability, driving talent overseas and eroding our global competitiveness. 
• 800 jobs have been cut at the CSIRO under the Albanese Government in the crucial fields of health and biosecurity, climate, environment, agriculture and food with a further 350 more planned despite a recent increase in CSIRO funding.  
• Recent funding increases to some areas of science in the last federal budget, including to the CSIRO, have come almost entirely from cuts to science elsewhere. 
• According to Science and Technology Australia, Australia is facing a mass exodus of its science workforce with a third of surveyed workers saying they planned to leave the sector altogether.  

Meanwhile, Australia Institute research shows the Federal government is forgoing around $17 billion dollars of revenue annually that could ensure Australian science is well funded, as well as other essential services like health, education, and housing. 

“If the Australian Government imposes a 25% tax on the foreign owned corporations exporting our gas, Australia could return as a scientific powerhouse and there would still be revenue to boost funding to health, education, and housing, said Mark Ogge, Principal Advisor at The Australia Institute. 

“We used to talk about Australia punching above its weight on scientific research. Our scientists invented wi-fi, the cochlear implant, a vaccine for cervical cancer and vital contributions climate science and solar PV helping to transform the world’s energy system. 

“But since 2008, Australia’s expenditure on research and development as a percentage of GDP has declined, while in other countries it has steadily increased.

“The Australian government is playing Hunger Games with science funding, almost all of the increases in science funding in the last budget came from cuts elsewhere.” 

I’m no economist, but as I read about the rescue package for the failing Tomago aluminium smelter, of which Rio Tinto is the main and controlling shareholder, I can’t help but wonder why taxpayers are footing the bill.

This is how Forbes reported Rio’s result, just a fortnight ago:

Mining giant Rio Tinto reported a 43% surge in June half-year profit to $6.85 billion, driven by robust demand for copper and aluminum.

Rio boss Simon Trott crowed about the company’s profitability on its website:

We achieved a step-change in performance in the first half, which, alongside favourable commodity prices, delivered a 28 per cent increase in underlying EBITDA and a 75 per cent rise in free cash flow.

Our continued investment in growth drove a 3 per cent increase in copper equivalent production¹ and further strengthened our portfolio diversification, with Copper, Aluminium and Lithium contributing more than 50 per cent of underlying EBITDA.

Our strong performance is underpinned by accelerating productivity across the business. We have already banked $870 million of productivity benefits and are on track to reach an annualised run-rate of $1.8 billion by year-end, with significantly more to come as our multi-year program continues to scale.

Our strong cash flow and balance sheet allow us to declare a $3.4 billion interim ordinary dividend, up 43 per cent, as we continue to invest in high-returning growth.

I’m sure smarter folk than me will explain that it’s all about protecting jobs, particularly with so many centred in one region, and ensuring the long-term future of manufacturing blah blah blah

But flinging billions of taxpayer dollars at a facility which is majority owned by a company that makes billions ….

Independent Senator for the ACT, David Pocock, also rose last night to support the Greens motion for a minimum 25% tax on gas exports last night:

Australians know that, once our resources are gone, they’re gone. There’s no getting them back. There’s no having regret after the fact. We had this incredible amount of gas that was exported from this country and yet we look at our national deficit and it’s hurtling towards $1 trillion of national debt. It’s cold comfort to them to hear a government that is regurgitating lines from the gas industry, despite a proposal from the ACTU. The Australian Council of Trade Unions put forward the proposal that a 25 per cent gas export tax was a way for Australians to get a fair return from the gas that we export and a way to reduce the price of gas in Australia for manufacturers, households and businesses. And yet we’ve got the Labor Party not just voting against but arguing against a proposal like this which the vast majority of Australians support.

We’re not making decisions in this place like we want to be here for a long time. We’re not saying: ‘We have this resource. It’s finite. It needs to be part of the transition. Let’s actually get a fair return for it.’ We’re happy to flog it off, take the crumbs and then repeat what the gas industry says. For many years they were in denial about this. They were. They said: ‘Absolutely not. It can’t happen.’ Now they’re in delay mode. They realise that the vast majority of Australians want a better deal, and so the gas industry is trying to delay it and now the Labor Party is trying to delay it. They’re saying, ‘The petroleum resource rent tax, down the track, will give us a return.’ When you look at the Treasury numbers, we get almost as much from passport fees in this country as we do from the petroleum resource rent tax.

Aussies aren’t buying this. No wonder they’re looking at the major parties and going, ‘Well, who are you guys serving? Are you in there to make good decisions for us or are you shilling for the gas industry and shilling for the gambling industry?’ What are we here to do? This is a finite resource that belongs to all Australians. While we delay, while we dither and while the government doesn’t have the guts to put in a windfall profits tax, companies like Woodside are laughing all the way to the bank. We’ll see LNG revenue climb from $59 billion last financial year to $65 billion in 2027. You’ve got Woodside saying that they’ve had a 28 per cent jump in revenue—$6 billion in the past three months—and they’ve exported less gas. And the government says, ‘All good mate; all good.’

Communications Minister Anika Wells is currently introducing the raft of bills to the house.

Wells opens by stating that “Journalism matters” and Australians need “Strong news rooms” that report news that is “accurate timely and available wherever they live”. She argues “to deliver this we need more journalists not fewer”

The bills are “not intended to raise revenue” but that she wants social media companies and media originations to do deals.

The Bill is avaliable here

The explanatory memorandum open with the objectives:

The News Journalism Payments Bill 2026 (the Bill) establishes a statutory payment scheme (News Journalism Payment Scheme, or the Scheme) to distribute any revenue raised by the News Bargaining Incentive (NBI) to eligible news organisations in Australia. The NBI is proposed by the News Media Bargaining Charge Bill 2026.

The intent of the NBI is to incentivise commercial deals between digital platforms and news organisations that were envisioned under the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code. However, should digital platforms decide to pay the charge under the NBI instead of making commercial deals with news organisations, there needs to be a transparent and proportionate mechanism to distribute the revenue back to Australian journalism.

..

Purpose and operation of the Bill

The purpose of the Bill is to establish the News Journalism Payment Scheme to distribute any revenue raised by the NBI to eligible news organisations in Australia to support a sustainable, independent and diverse news sector.

The Scheme will support the employment of journalists that are integral to the production of public interest journalism. Additionally, the Bill has been designed to uphold the editorial independence of news organisations through the provision of clear eligibility that minimises discretionary decisions that could interfere with public interest journalist content.

We’ll have a close read of the Bill and get back with some analysis

The prayers are done and the day has started.

And with that I will hand you over to Greg and Glenn who will take you through the rest of the day.

Be good!

Ax

ANZ have reported a three month cash profit to the end of June of $1.9m – which is where it was expected, but is still up 2% from the year before.

Yesterday afternoon, the Greens moved a motion about “The need for the government to finally introduce a minimum 25% tax on gas exports to ensure Australians receive a fair return from our gas resources, as gas corporations including Shell, Santos and Woodside benefit from reported war-driven windfall revenues while Australians continue to face high energy prices and a cost of living crisis.”

Australia Institute research shows that a gas export tax could raise $17 billion per year and that failing to tax gas exports fairly means accepting bigger budget deficits, lower quality public services and rising inequality.

You can read Greens leader Larissa Waters’ speech on the need for a gas tax in full below:

Actions speak louder than words. Labor’s national platform was just amended so that it says their party wants to ensure a fairer return from our natural resources.

Well, today the Greens are giving the government a chance to vote the way that their own members want them to and vote for a minimum 25% tax on gas exports. Because right now, Australians are being taken for a ride. Japan makes more money off Australia’s gas than Australians do. They’ve had a tax on gas imports for some 50 years, so they made $8 billion a year for the last five years, largely off our gas. Eight billion dollars, while we give it away virtually for free.

Those numbers just don’t add up, and they’re not adding up for Australians either.

That’s why poll after poll shows that a majority of people support a minimum 25 per cent tax on gas exports.

That’s why just a few weeks ago my colleague and I, Senator Allman-Payne, had 80 people packed into a pub on the sunny coast and 75 of them left with a sign saying tax gas exports for their fence.

And that’s why hundreds of Queenslanders turned out last weekend to wave those same signs, all the way from Gladstone down to the Gold Coast.

People are getting behind this campaign because they know the big gas corporations are ripping them off. One in three big corporations pays no corporate tax at all, including Santos, one of the biggest gas producers and exporters in Australia. In the three months after the war in Iran began, Woodside Energy reported nearly a 30% jump in revenue. So not only are they killing the planet, but they’re making a killing while they do it. A minimum 25% gas export tax could raise around $17 billion every single year. We could use that revenue to actually help people in what is a deep and abiding cost of living crisis.

Imagine, imagine instead of leaving $17 billion in the pockets of the gas corporations, we could use it to put dental and mental health care into Medicare.

We could use it to build more public and affordable homes for people. We could fully fund public schools. We could make university free again and cancel student debt. We could put solar and batteries on every single roof in this country and invest in sustainable biofuels so that we’re protected from the next fuel crisis. And we could have real energy independence in a way that helps us tackle the climate crisis at the same time. That’s the sort of thing that $17 billion could be used to actually help Australians.

Now Labour is feeling the heat from the public on this, and that’s why they’ve changed their party platform. But words are not action. So today the Greens are giving Labour the opportunity to act and to vote for a gas export tax, because governments should work for people, not for corporate profits. And it is about time that this government started saying no to their corporate donors and started acting in the interests of Australians. That is your job as representatives and as the government that the people have elected, you’re meant to be working for people.

Instead, we see the Prime Minister continually delivering for the gas corporations and for the other corporate donors that fuel his re-election coffers, and people are sick of it. And they are seeing it more clearly, this government works for big corporations and it puts Australians last. And they’re sick of it, folks, so vote for a gas tax already.

Anara Watson

The Australia Institute has long been interested in fixing Australia’s freedom of information laws.

FOI requests from journalists and the public help hold governments to account. Just as important are the integrity agencies that oversee the FOI process.

These integrity agencies include the Commonwealth’s chronically underfunded Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and state ombudsman offices.

These agencies have the power to overturn rejected FOI requests when they’ve been assessed incorrectly.

If the government respected its obligations under FOI law, having one of its FOI decisions overturned would be rare.

Instead, last year the OAIC overturned three in every four decisions that it reviews.

How do we know? Thanks to another FOI!

And when integrity bodies step in, Australians get more details about how government works. An FOI recently revealed how close South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas is to the Murdoch press. He has regular meetings with the editor-at-large of The Advertiser.

According to Rex Patrick, long-time FOI advocate, “For 17 months [Malinauskas] fought like hell to keep the information from the public, but he was eventually ordered by the South Australian Ombudsman to hand it over”.

Governments too often delay and deny access to keep documents from public scrutiny. Australia Institute research shows that, at least at the federal level, the government’s handling of FOIs has become less transparent and efficient in recent years.

AAP

A multibillion-dollar deal to rescue Australia’s largest aluminium smelter has brought “enormous relief” to thousands of workers and an end to months of crisis negotiations.

The Tomago Aluminium smelter in the NSW Hunter region faced closure in 2028 due to forecasts of higher energy prices.

While the government has refused to say what the revenue return for taxpayers would be, union officials described the deal as a “win for the working class” that is expected to save thousands of jobs.

The smelter is the single largest electricity user in the nation and consumes about 10 per cent of power supplies in NSW.

The Australian Energy Regulator forecast energy contract prices to double by 2029.

Electricity accounts for more than 40 per cent of its operating costs and Tomago Aluminium warned it would not remain commercially viable if prices rise.

After months of negotiations, the NSW government and the Commonwealth have agreed to commit $2.5 billion to assist in entering into long-term energy contracts to in 2029.

Tomago Aluminium have agreed to invest a further $1.1 billion to decarbonise and upgrade its facilities to better adapt to fluctuations in renewable energy supply and demand.

The focus will now move to the long-term viability of the site.

Industry Minister Tim Ayres refused to comment on what the revenue return for taxpayers would be from the investment, instead labelling it a “complex and large arrangement”.

“(This is) a tough thing for the governments to work through and to deliver together, but it’s manifestly in the national interest,” he told ABC Radio National on Wednesday, defending the bailout of one of Australia’s largest mining companies.

Even so, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said keeping the smelter operating was critical for Australia’s manufacturing future.

“In December last year, I stood in the rain at Tomago and told the workers ‘we have your back’,” Mr Albanese said in a statement. “Today, alongside the NSW government, we deliver on that promise.”

Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union NSW and ACT state secretary Brad Pidgeon said after months of uncertainty, workers can finally feel confidence about the future.

“This is a win for working class people in the Hunter that is a testament to the tireless advocacy of our members on the job,” he said.

For Brad McDougall, he said the smelter has been at the heart of the Hunter economy for decades.

“The local community has been campaigning tirelessly for the smelter to be protected, and today that hard work has finally paid off,” the Electrical Trades Union NSW/ACT organiser added.

“Thousands of local families rely on Tomago. This is a massive win.”

Premier Chris Minns welcomed the agreement, in which NSW would contribute almost half the funding.

Mr Minns said the Hunter had been an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse with the agreement to make sure it remained so “for generations to come.”

Tomago Aluminium produces up to 590,000 tonnes of aluminium a year.

Smelter chief executive Jerome Dozol warned in 2025 the facility would have to close without government intervention on future energy prices from renewable and fossil fuel sources.

Tomago smelter majority owner Rio Tinto reported increasing profits of $6.9 billion in the first half of 2026.

It’s the latest in a string of bailouts from state and federal governments for metal processing infrastructure.

The federal government has promised billions in propping up facilities including the Whyalla steelworks, Mount Isa copper smelter and the Boyne aluminium smelter in recent years.

On the housing market, the man overseeing the bank which saw a $11b yearly profit, largely because of increased interest rate payments, says:

There was certainly a lot more interest, I think, in the changes to the housing market. But as we tried to do yesterday to put some of those numbers in context, actually applications peaked in October last year. House prices peaked in March. It’s clearly a number of factors that were weighing on housing as interest rates rose, global uncertainty, and as you mentioned, some of the changes announced in the budget.

We pointed out that applications had dropped in the in the period that you mentioned, and then we basically saw that start to recover post 30 June and up slightly in the first week of August. But I think it’s always important to recognize how strongly the housing market had performed too much, up 70% over six the last six years at a national level, and we have seen changes in house prices before.

And on the Financial Services Union questions about why a bank which received $11bn in one year in profit is quibbling over staff pay rises, Matt Comyn says:

Well, we deliberately put the pay offer to through the union and to our employees last week. We believe it’s a you know it’s a very competitive offering. As you would appreciate, it’s a negotiation which is done in good faith between ourselves and the FSU. We’ll continue to engage with them, and I’m confident that we’ll be able to strike an agreement that adequately represents and rewards all of our people for the great work they do. My own salary rose to $9.1 million in the latest financial year, up from 7 million a year earlier because of bonuses from previous years that have been deferred and vested.

Q: Is that a number you’re comfortable with, given the performance of the bank in your personal contribution?

Well, obviously, as you’d appreciate, I don’t determine my own remuneration. I certainly recognize it’s a large number, as you mentioned. I actually get paid over six years, so the work that I will do this financial year, I’ll still be receiving some portions of that six years from now. Likewise, some of the remuneration that was received last year actually dates back to many years before that, and you know a large proportion of that is driven by the increase in the share price over that time.

Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn has told the ABC the CBA think rates will be kept on hold for the rest of the year:

Our economic team think rates are on hold for the rest of this year. A combination of we see the economy slowing. We believe it will slow over the course of this calendar year, although still be in positive growth. We believe inflation will come into the target band. Obviously, housing sentiment and sentiment more broadly will weigh on us. You know, softer household consumption, and then we’re forecasting two rate cuts into 2027. Clearly, there are others who believe that more rate hikes will be necessary to get inflation back into the target band. That’s that’s certainly the highest priority from a monetary policy perspective. So there is that prospect, but we believe that rates, as I said, will be on hold, easing into 2027, which I think would be good news for households.

Q: So, so how how do you achieve this? If we’re talking about the 180,000, that would include cuts to the number of backpackers and international students. National’s leader Matt Canavan said the Coalition would not cut backpackers. Do you regret freelancing on those details before they’d been settled?

Andrew Bragg:

Look, it’s something that we need to consult on. And go back and look at the speech. I was making it clear that this is the general direction of travel. These are just that you need to find a way to operationalise it, and you’d need to obviously consult with industry, with the community, and also with colleagues. That’s that’s clear. But I just think we’ve got to try and be clearer about we’re trying to to get here as a nation.

And the Canadians obviously were successful in helping their housing system by cutting migration and building more houses. This is an important of the puzzle.

Q: Let’s return to housing. Your idea of cutting the national construction code from around 2000 pages to 80 is that policy that’s been greenlit by a shadow cabinet.

Bragg:

Of course, has that part has. Of course, I mean I love the fascination with the Liberal and National Party’s internal processes. It’s very interesting. But I mean, this was in Angus Taylor’s budget reply in May, and we have committed to getting it to 200 pages, but we actually found a way to get it less than 100 pages, ostensibly by picking up the New Zealand building code, which is about 80 pages.

Q: You embraced the idea yesterday that some of the homes built under the 80-page code would need to be basic homes, perhaps without energy efficiency standards of seven stars and other amenities. Are you suggesting that to afford housing, some low-income Australians will have to accept housing that is substandard? Yes, definitely.

Bragg:

Yes, definitely. I think we’ve got to be clear there are trade-offs here.

I’ve been counseled not to use the term Maslow’s hierarchy, but some people don’t know what that means. But I mean, if if it’s more important to have a house than to not have a house, so given the affordability crisis we have in the housing system, we need to just build more houses. ACOSS has raised concerns about people getting a house that they can’t afford to run, but I mean, I mean, ACOSS also wants to have a super guaranteed 30% or something. I mean, ACOSS needs to get out and talk to more people.

For anyone needing a refresher, this is Maslow’s hierarchy – with the idea of lower needs having to be met, before people can achieve the other needs. What Bragg is saying is that the need for a house needs to be met, before you can look at heating, or cooling. Which – I am not sure when the last time Andrew Bragg lived in an Australian home without heating or cooling, but it is not, as Tim Wilson said yesterday, a case of ‘just putting a jumper on’. It impacts every level of your lived experience. You can’t get warm enough. You can’t get into the shower or toilet comfortably. You get sick. If you have elderly people or young children (or infants) you spend every moment at home trying to work out how to keep their temperature regulated. Australian homes now have heating and cooling standards for a reason. We live differently to how our grandparents did. Our homes now reflect that.

Diagram of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (five-level model). Based on his original 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” and later clarifications.

Then Andrew Bragg is up.

He’s asked about Housing Minister Clare O’Neil’s response to his speech: “A crazed, almost manic ideological fever dream. It was genuinely unhinged” and whether or not his colleagues gave him a better review:

Bragg:

I mean, I feel sorry for Claire that she feels the need to say those sort of things. I mean, I think people are very frustrated about the terrible housing system, which is corrupted, has way too much tax, way too much regulation, and I wish you’d just focus on building houses. I mean, all the promises that they made about the National Construction Code, they have failed to deliver on. They’ve made it more complex, more expensive to build, and so I think that’s what you should be focusing on.

Q: Your speech yesterday, did the opposition leader Angus Taylor did he see it before it was delivered yesterday?

Bragg:

Well, of course, I talk widely with my colleagues, and speeches are provided in advance in the usual way.

I thought it was important to give a detailed speech on housing, but it’s very hard to disconnect the housing malaise from the nation’s malaise.

Q: To go back to the question, did Angus Taylor see this speech before you delivered it?

Bragg:

Well, I’m not going into personal interactions with colleagues, and I think you would expect me to.

Q: But it’s important about whether this we heard Coalition policy yesterday, or whether we heard the world according to Andrew Bragg.

Bragg:

Well, I think we should be clear. I mean, I thought that it was important to give a detailed housing address, and I didn’t think it was possible to disconnect the housing malaise from the nation’s malaise. So, in terms of the the broader issues that were flagged, I mean these are not detailed policy prescriptions, but I thought it was important as a token of honesty to be clear about the direction of travel

Q: Should be the reduction in net migration to less than 180,000, you say is achievable. Is that what the coalition wants to do, or is that your number?

Bragg:

Again, these are not opinions. These are just the facts around the gaps that we have. I think Angus has done a very important piece of work here by putting this migration and housing nexus clearly at the center of our housing agenda. It’s one of the key ways that we can fix the housing crisis.

(That sound you hear is Matt Grudnoff yelling that housing supply has not lagged behind population growth)

OK, so now that Andrew Bragg has taken the media back to its Abundance era (the so-called progressive ‘the left can win by cutting red tape! That’s the answer to everything!’ book that swept neo-liberal economies a little while back, until people were like – dude, there is so much more to it and it sort of dropped away) and the media has decided we need to take the Angus Taylor budget-in-reply speech ‘we’ll make the building code a pamphlet’ thing seriously now that Bragg has said it (he’s a bit of a darling of centrist media), Daniel Mulino is asked all about it.

Now Bragg freelanced a bit in that speech (which was also very heavy on allegations THIS Labor government was communist government – which – COME ON) and it’s being seen as an indication that Angus Taylor is in trouble (he went rogue on areas not in his portfolio – like migration numbers) but the only other candidate they have is Andrew Hastie, who seems to be buying his time.

So let’s see.

To the questions:

Q: Moving on to another area, Liberal frontbencher Andrew Bragg addressed the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday. He said that building regulations were too complicated, and that they required gold-plated housing. He said that the National Construction Code should be reduced from around 2000 pages to 80, the government has also said you want to streamline regulations. Do you agree with him in principle?

Mulino:

Well, so when we go back to the three-day economic reform roundtable last year, better regulation was one of the key themes. It took up almost a whole day of the three days. The national construction code came up, and the fact that the code was changing every three years was seen as a challenge. It’s understandable that it’s changing because we’re trying to reflect better materials. In my own portfolio of insurance, we want the national construction code to reflect, for example, better ways of delivering and building more resilient buildings.

Q: Would 80 pages get you there? Is it available?

Mulino:

What we agreed to was to freeze the national construction code, and that was a reflection that we needed to stop that having stop that changing constantly in the course of long projects. Over time, it would be good to reduce the national construction code. I think just saying that we’re going to reduce it by 90% without having undertaken any of the detailed work is, I suspect, not realistic. There’s reasons why there’s a lot of detail in there, but what we’ve undertaken and what we’re delivering is to say to the industry what you’ve what you’ve got there is going to stay, and you can you can build houses on the basis of that code going forward. That was seen as a really significant move, and and will help the industry deliver more.

Q: As you’re saying, we’re almost a year on from this productivity economic roundtable. Why has the government been unable to significantly shift productivity in the past year?

Mulino:

Well, so in the budget, there were a number of measures identified that are going to contribute to productivity. Over $10 billion worth of measures were identified. That included the passage of the EPBC Act, a really significant measure, the freezing of the national construction.

Q: When are you going to see a difference in the productivity numbers?

Mulino:

So productivity growth tends to lag the reforms. We saw this back in the Hawke Keating years. There can be a lag of a few years. That’s the nature of the way the economy tends to incorporate these kinds of regulations.

Q: Do you think it will take until productivity improves under this government?

Mulino:

Well, we saw in the last national accounts that productivity lifted, and three of the four quarters were positive. So I think on some fronts we probably have seen a turning of the corner. But the RBA governor is outlying it as an area of concern, yeah, I don’t think you can put a particular number on when we see the impact of particular changes. But as I mentioned in the budget, we can point to a significant number of material productivity changes. We can also point to significant changes when it comes to competition policy. The most significant changes in mergers and acquisition policy in recent decades. These will have an accumulative effect and will contribute to a more productive and competitive economy.

Daniel Mulino is asked:

Q: The government will today introduce amendments to laws requiring big tech companies to pay Australian news organizations for their content either by striking agreements or paying a tax. You’ve made some changes since announcing the proposed laws last week. What are the changes?

Mulino:

So the changes that we’ve made to get this bill to the point where we can introduce it today and know that it’s going to get through the Parliament, which I’m very pleased to be able to get to, is that we’re going to change the requirement for the number of deals that have to be entered into to fully equip the obligation from six to eight, and that will lift the cap on any individual deal from 16.67 to 25, which is where it was at in the exposure draft legislation. We’re also changing the reference year to be one year closer to the current financial year, which means that will enlarge in the overall pool to take into account one extra year of growth. And we’re also going to reserve 5% of any incentive payments for AAP to reflect their critical role in the ecosystem.

Q: To simplify, do you expect Australian media organizations will get more money or less money from the tech companies than under your initial proposal.

Mulino:

So, compared to the formulation that I announced last week, because we’re changing the reference year to one year forward, it incorporates another year of growth in digital advertising revenue. So, the total pool for media will be bigger by that year of growth. So more, more for media. Yeah.

Q: By specifying that tech companies must strike deals with at least eight news organizations, is the government making a deliberate choice to support some of the smaller media companies?

Mulino:

Yes, and so that’s that obligation to enter into at least at least eight deals is if they want to fully acquit, so it still will be open to tech companies to only partially offset their obligation. But if they want to fully offset their obligation, there have to be at least eight deals. In addition to that obligation, there’s a 200% offset for small and medium players. So that’s also a very strong incentive for them to enter into agreements with regional media, with CALD media, and LGBTQI, and other other smaller players. But what I would also say is that when you look at the way that Google and even Meta, when they were engaged in deals under the previous news media bargaining code, participated, they entered into quite a large number of deals, dozens of deals. So I’m hopeful that that’s the way that they will engage with it again.

Q: Was that a mistake? And should successive governments in Australia have done more to prevent heavy industry from going offshore.

Mulino:

Well, I think there’s been a growing realisation that increasing specialisation, as a result of what you might call globalisation in the post-war era, which did lead to a lot of productivity gains and a lot of lift of living standards, it did create vulnerabilities.

And as I mentioned earlier, in the last decade, I think that’s been brought to the fore. Supply chains have become more complex and, in some instances, more fragile. And so, I think what that means is that risk has to be put into the consideration of governments and their policies

Assistant treasurer Daniel Mulino is on ABC Radio National RN Breakfast this morning, talking about the Tomago deal.

He’s been getting more and more airtime lately – including in QT – which shows that the current Labor leadership think he has future leadership potential.

Asked about the Tomago Deal, Mulino says:

Well, I think if we look at the last decade, what we’ve seen globally is that supply chain resilience is becoming increasingly important. We saw that in the post-COVID world, where supply chains seized up.

We’ve seen that with the Middle East ructions and energy supply chains. We’re one of the few countries in the world with end-to-end aluminum supply chain, and that’s really critical for transport infrastructure. It’s really critical for electricity transmission, and so this is our largest smelter.

It’s really important that it keeps going. We’ve put significant amounts of funding in 50/50, as you say, but because we have an uncapped contribution, it’s important that we get that upside, and and what we get.

Q: How much you’re expecting from that deal? The upside.

Mulino:

I don’t think there’s any particular figure that’s been put on that. But what we do know is that this is going to protect a significant number of jobs in the region and 1000s of jobs indirectly. So it’s really important for the region, but absolutely critical for one of our most important industrial supply chains. This deal is part of a shift in industrial policy following an era where the consensus was that rich countries should not subsidise heavy industry indefinitely.

Fair Agenda has taken a look at the government funding for national frontline women’s safety services and found less than $500m has been allocated over the last three years. (We spent about $16bn on fossil fuel subsidies last year).

Current funding levels are leaving thousands of women unable to access service support across jurisdictions – including 6 victim-survivors a day being turned away in NSW from homelessness services, and almost 4,000 domestic and family violence victim-survivors a year not able to access a service in Victoria when they reach out for help. [2,3]

As the Government finalises its next 5-year plan to address gender-based violence, a delegation of survivor-advocates and frontline service leaders will be at Parliament House from August 17–19 to highlight that the government’s next National Plan will fail unless it properly funds frontline services.

Daisy Gardener, Campaign Manager at Fair Agenda:

In its first 3.5 years of power, the Albanese Government has allocated as little as $457.5 million to frontline services that can be ‘accessed by individuals experiencing family, domestic and sexual violence’. It’s nowhere near enough to keep pace with growing demand. Frontline services are overwhelmed and underfunded, struggling to provide crisis shelter and other support to women trying to escape and recover from violence. A key measure of success for this government should be whether women and children can actually access frontline services when they need them.”

Kerry Staines, CEO at First Nations Advocates Against Family Violence

First Nations family violence prevention and legal services are lifelines, culturally safe, trusted, and often the only place a woman or family can turn. We don’t just respond to crises, we help communities heal and break cycles of violence. But services can’t currently help every family that needs this critical support. Governments need to urgently and sustainably fund the services our communities depend on for legal justice and to detect, and respond early to signs of violence.”

Aislinn Martin, Executive Officer, National Association of Services Against Sexual Violence

The specialist sexual violence service sector provides critical assistance to all victim-survivors, including women and children who have experienced sexual violence and child sexual abuse. Sexual violence services across Australia are critically underfunded, with some victim-survivors facing waiting lists of up to fourteen months to access counselling due to demand. The Second Action Plan must commit to establishing a dedicated funding stream for sexual violence services across all states and territories.”

Sue Webeck, Domestic Violence Crisis Service

Frontline specialist domestic and family violence services are not a luxury — they are a necessity. They provide expert risk assessment, tailored safety planning and material support, helping women navigate complex legal and support systems while holding those using violence accountable. This work can make the difference between helping a woman reach safety, healing and recovery, and grieving the loss of another woman to violence.” Kyeesha Jones, Barkindji Woman, Survivor-advocate: “Having safe, collaborative and culturally responsive care can change the trajectory of victim-survivors and their families’ lives. It was important for my family to have support and services that cared about us, while also challenging the normalisation of violence within our communities. It is crucial that sustainable and continued funding directly reaches and resources services and communities so they can continue supporting better and safer futures for our women, children and families.”

Tiffany Karlsson, Canberra Rape Crisis Centre

At the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre, we are seeing demand for our services continue to grow, but funding is not keeping pace. Government funding must reach the specialist sexual violence support services doing the work so that every victim-survivor can access timely, specialist, trauma-informed support.

AAP

Australian journalists are one step closer to being paid fairly for content hosted on social media platforms as Labor strikes a deal on news bargaining laws.

The federal government’s proposed news bargaining incentive will push companies like Google, Meta and TikTok to strike commercial deals with news organisations to use the publishers’ content on their platforms.

If deals are struck, the companies will pay a smaller share of their Australian advertising revenues to the government than if they refuse to reach agreements.

While Labor announced a final version of the legislation earlier in August following public consultation, the government has announced further changes to secure the support of the coalition.

These include increasing the number of deals tech companies will have to sign to at least eight to offset payments to the government.

Each deal will also be capped at 25 per cent of the total levy to ensure media outlets receive a reasonable cut based on reach and significance in the market.

Australian Associated Press has secured a five per cent cut of all revenue collected by the government through the news bargaining incentive.

The reforms would strengthen the national media landscape “from large companies to small ones”, Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino said.

The government was ensuring journalists got their fair share from digital platforms which benefited from Australian news, Communications Minister Anika Wells said.

“A diverse, strong and sustainable media sector is an essential part of a robust democracy,” Ms Wells said in a statement.

The changes are on top of existing measures including a grant program for small publishers and start-ups, including networking platforms like LinkedIn and broadening the definition of journalists.

Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, slammed the government’s proposed laws in June.

The tech giant labelled it an unfair tax which won’t guarantee a diverse and sustainable news sector.

Hello and welcome back to the last day of the sitting week (until next week!)

You’ll have Amy Remeikis in the morning and then Glenn Connley and Greg Jericho will sub back in to take you through the day (too much work, I’m sorry!) but you will be well covered!

They did an incredible job yesterday and also loved all the interactions with you, so keep it coming!

Today in political news, the NSW and federal governments have managed to come to an agreement over the future of the Rio Tinto Tomago smelter.

The state and federal governments will spend $2.5bn keeping the aluminium smelter open, and Rio Tinto, the majority owner, will put in at least $1.1bn. It’s the nation’s largest consumer of electricity, and uses up to 12% of the state’s energy supply.

An affordable long term power source was one of the operator’s sticking points, and a long term renewable deal is part of the saviour package. So what do you know – renewables are saving industry now. It’s almost like all those political fights trying to stop renewables was shooting Australian industry in the foot.

That’ll be formally announced later today.

The government also has a new draft media bargaining code which basically gives all the major media companies a little of what they want, reinstating the per-deal cap of 25% of the total levy, which is what Nine wanted and increasing the total number of deals to eight, which gives some of the smaller media companies a chance.

And the National Union of Students walk out will be happening today – participating high school and university students will walk out of classes and join at least eight rallies around the country, protesting against Pauline Hanson and her policies. Expect a lot of politicians and commentators to lose their minds today, as young people dare to have a voice.

We’ll be covering it all off, and more – so grab your coffee and join!